


A Decent Proposal (at Long Last)

by Imogen_Penn



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:06:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third time's the charm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Decent Proposal (at Long Last)

**Author's Note:**

> Just this little thing, remarkable only in that it is probably the only thing I've ever written that took me under an hour, beggining to end.

It wasn’t important, not really. But it had become the battle ground.

When Darcy had taken the job that Maria Hill had offered her, had listened when the other woman said she had potential, that they wanted to train her to be an agent, Clint had not been happy.

It had been a fight. A fight about safety and protection and a woman’s right to do what she wanted with her life and pushing pushing _pushing_ against Clint’s protective instinct.

“It’s just,” he said with pained and terrified eyes, “it has been a very long time since I was afraid of anything the way I’m afraid of losing you.”

“The way you treat me like glass,” she said with fire in her eyes, “makes me feel like so much less.”

But she was so much more to him, so he relented, was so proud of her, watched her progress. He knew he should let it go. But he was so afraid for her. She wasn’t from this world. He wasn’t sure she knew, what she was choosing for her life. What she was choosing when she chose him.

They came from so far apart. And in the end, it was the job that brought them slowly and inexorably closer together, reaching indivisibility.

He asked her to marry him when she completed her training, proud and terrified in equal measures, and she said no.

He had walked around like a dead man for a week before she came to his apartment with takeout and boxed wine and laughed at his distress.

“Don’t be silly,” she said like a force of nature, “You should know by now that I’m yours. You’ll figure it out when we’re ready.”

+

+

He asked her again the first time he sat beside her after a mission, pale face above paler hospital sheets, bitter words at her handler for sending her into a situation too dangerous fresh on his tongue. Desperate to keep her close to him forever, to keep her safe.

She looked disappointed in him then.

And it made him think.

+

+

He asked her for a third time. Sure and simple.

He had just watched her save the world, rescue a situation with her team when the rest had given up faith, called back-up, given them up for lost.

He knew it when he got the call. He got the call and his first thought wasn’t that she might be dead, that she was clearly in danger, or that he needed to get to her side.

His first thought, and his immediate words were, “You don’t need us. She’s got this.”

And he was right. They flew in to a battle that was already over. He walked up just in time to hear Tony saying “Your man told us you didn’t need the help.”

She turned her brilliant smile, undimmed by dirt, debris and blood, to him.

“He did, did he?” she raised an eyebrow,

“Well,” he said, slinging an arm around her waist, “I finally figured out that you don’t need me to save your ass. You worked real hard to be able to do it yourself.”

“I really did,” her hands were on either side of his face, “took you long enough to figure it out.”

“Marry me.”

“Yes.”


End file.
